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Tankbooks – classic fiction in vintage-style cigarette packets

If you’re in England, you’ll know that there’s a smoking ban on the way from July 1st. And if you really want to annoy someone in a public place after that date (and possibly risk arrest), you should pull out a Tankbook from your bag.

Tankbooks are a genius piece of design – literary classics miniaturised to fit into a cigarette packet. And the packet is absolutely authentic too, right down to the flip-top lid, cellophane wrap and foil insert. Get through all that and you have a complete version of either Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Ernest Hemingway’s The Undefeated and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony, Rudyard Kipling’s The Man who would be King, The Phantom Rickshaw and Black Jack, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and finally, Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych and Father Sergius.

Each comes in a box that’s almost identical to a leading brand of cigarettes, but with the book title replacing the trade name. As you’d expect, they go on sale as the ban comes in on July 1st from Waterstones, Borders, Books Etc, Blackwells, Foyles, Magma, Design Museum, American Retro, Selfridges, Urban Outfitters and Paul Smith. Each retails for £6.99.